Immediate Family

About Sidneh Brown / Fleming

During Sidneh Rosin’s first marriage, while living in Pennsylvania with her husband and little son, a party of six Indians and one Frenchman disguised as an Indian came to the house on a day when the snow was falling at the commencement of winter and knocked at the door. One of them said, “Who keeps house?”. Brown, deceived by the English words, opened the door and they rushed in and attacked the family. Brown killed an Indian with a sickle, the rest emptied their rifles in him, he fell dead. They then took the two-year-old boy from his cradle and dashed out his brains against the jamb. They tied her, set fire to the barn where the cattle were and burned them. She said the moans and cries of the burning beasts were terrible to hear. They took what clothing they wanted, caught a feather bed up and shook the feathers out into the storm, and laughed and yelled like demons to see the feathers fly. They then started with Sidneh Brown a prisoner, her house a desolation, her dead lying unburied, to meet some stronger parties of Indians who were going to Canada. After some days their provisions gave out. One night when they were almost perishing with hunger a young Indian roasted a skin shot pouch, and dividing it offered it to the rest, all took some but an old Indian and the captive woman. When she refused to eat it the old Indian patted her on the back in approval of her powers of endurance. She one day asked the Frenchman how he could be so cruel, saying she knew he was a white man and a Frenchman. “How do you know that?” he said. She replied, “ I know you were white by your eyes, no Indian ever has blue eyes”. They crossed the Ohio River high up at a narrow point on a raft, and one of the Indians shot a buffalo across the river, which was considered by them a good shot. She gave birth to a son on the wearisome journey. The Indians broke the ice on a stream and plunging him in returned him to his mother. Afterward, having performed the entire journey on foot, they arrived a Quebec and sold her to the French for five French crowns (1 crowns equals $1.06 ½). The French governor kindly invited her to stay with his family which she did, she was always grateful for their kindness. They were Catholics. The daughter of the house, having by some means obtained a Protestant bible, asked Mrs. Brown to read it to her as she could read English. In 1759 she was exchanged and tried to start home on foot, but one of her feet had been so badly injured with cold and the long journey on foot, that she gave out one day, at the same time Gen. Wolf’s army came up on their way to Quebec, and Gen Philip Schuyler, moved with noble generosity, took her back and told Gen. Wolf to send a surgeon to her. The surgeon sent an apprentice, but Schuyler would not be put off and told Gen. Wolfe her history, and that the surgeon must come himself. He sent the surgeon immediately and she was taken to a hotel for English officers, where she remained until well. Then with her babe she started for home again, as she said “to the olddesolation”. She was still young, and as before said, became acquainted with and married George Fleming, a high church man and an Englishman. In conformity with the English custom he wore a wig. The family crest of the Flemings was a guantleted hand and flaming sword. His grandfather owned a war horse and a coat of mail, and had been a soldier in some of the old English wars. George Fleming and his wife settle near Bulls Run, Va. At the close of the Revolution they removed to Winsborough, S.C. Two daughters were born to them, Margaret and Sidneh. Margaret married Robert Stuart Coulter before mentions, Sidneh married Matthew McClintock. George Fleming and his wife died and were buried at Winsborough S.C. Her son, young Brown, who was born during here captivity, lived to become an Indian fighter of some note. He was determined to go into Gov. Dunamore’s war with “Cornstalk”. His mother opposed it, but he hid an old gun in the woods and went though only a boy. In battle he was so rash and incautious that the soldiers on several occasions jerked him back out of danger. No more is know of him except that he married a widow and went to live away from his people.